


Heartbeat Mantra

by voxanonymi (spasmodicIntrigue)



Series: Ignoct Week 2018 [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Ignoct Week, M/M, Mental Health Issues, the usual stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 15:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13638954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spasmodicIntrigue/pseuds/voxanonymi
Summary: He was cold and tired and achy and reeling from physical and emotional exertion. Luna… Gentiana… Shiva… Prompto.Ardyn. Even just thinking the name set his arms buzzing. Rage, it seemed, cared little for exhaustion.It might be the last chance to rest for a long while. OfcourseNoctis can't sleep.





	Heartbeat Mantra

**Author's Note:**

> Ignoct Week Day 5—  
> > _Simple: Bed Sharing._

When they’d first gotten on the train, back in Succarpe (which already felt like months ago), sleeping had been easy. Maybe too easy.

It wasn’t quite the Regalia, but the rhythmic _chug chug chug_ down the tracks was soothing enough to make the heaviness in Noctis’ limbs and head and eyelids impossible to ignore. The dreamless, black sleep had been a welcome respite from the almost-pain pressing in at the sides of his skull; from the burning whispers in his pocket; from Gladio’s glares, Prompto’s nervous fidgeting, and Ignis’…

Well, anyway. He was grateful for it to be so easy. He suspected it wouldn’t last. He was right.

“And we’re back on track!” Biggs’ voice crackled over the intercom, as the train crawled its way out of Ghorovas Rift, slowed and weighed by the heavy frost and snowfall. “Might be a few hours yet, but Gralea is within our sights, lads! Well, not literally. Not yet. But you get what I mean.”

“You should get some rest,” said Gladio, once the sociopathically cheerful soldier had finally shut up. It took Noctis a moment to realise that he was being spoken to. “No telling what we’ll find in Gralea.”

Noctis had no arguments. He was cold and tired and achy and reeling from physical and emotional exertion. Luna… Gentiana… Shiva… Prompto. _Ardyn_. Even just thinking the name set his arms buzzing. Rage, it seemed, cared little for exhaustion.

He pushed it all down as he slid the compartment door shut behind him and slumped down onto his bunk. He had the pick of the entire sleeper car now that the civilian passengers were in Aranea’s care, in Tenebrae. But he’d nonetheless gone to the compartment they’d originally paid for, one-way to Gralea. He knew why. It was embarrassing to admit to himself.

Noctis lay down facing the wall.

Twenty minutes later, he was still lying there, unmoving besides than the train’s occasional jolts, staring at the wall.

God, he hoped Prompto was okay. Or still alive, at least. They could work with that. It was better than the alternative—better than even _considering_ the alternative. As long as Prompto was alive, it was fine. Everything else was fixable, as long as he was alive. Right?

Shit! Noctis was the one who’d dragged him into all this in the first place. The one who’d selfishly insisted that his best friend—an _untrained civilian_ —be allowed to accompany him outside the city as an honorary Crownsguard. The one who’d been unable to tell the difference between illusion and reality. The one too busy brooding in his own stale self-pity to give those around him so much as the time of day. The one Luna had given her life for. The one Altissia had practically been reduced to ruins for—the one who’d _allowed_ it to happen. The one who’d caused _Ignis_ , the best thing he’d never deserved, to lose his fucking _sight_ and damn near almost his life in the process.

He—Noctis Lucis Caelum, hundred-and-fourteenth of his line—was the one who was supposed to fix everything. How was he supposed to fix _anything_ when he was so shattered and broken himself? How was he supposed to fix anything when everything he touched, everything that came _near_ him, inevitably fell to pieces?

The door slid open. Closed. Soft footsteps; the tapping of a cane; the creak of bedsprings.

“Sleep eluding you, Noct?”

Noctis rolled onto his back, tilting his head to the side. Ignis sat on the bunk across from him, cane propped up against the mattress.

“How could you tell?”

“Your breathing was too shallow. Dead giveaway.”

Part of Noctis was pleased (and relieved) that Ignis seemed to be adapting to his handicap so swiftly; another part unsurprised considering this was Ignis; and one very large part guilty and aggrieved that it was even necessary for Ignis to adjust to anything.

Noctis sat up. He braced his hands on the edge of the bunk and set his eyes on his adviser, quickly finding the scars too painful to look at. So he dropped his gaze to Ignis’ shoes instead. How pathetic of him, to be unable to face the sacrifice, made for him, by someone he loved.

Ignis’ patent leather shoes, usually pristine and polished, were slightly scuffed at the toes. Probably from all the times in the past few weeks that he’d pushed himself to keep up, caught a toe on the ground or some unseen obstacle, and gone sprawling. Prompto had always been but a hand’s length away, ready to catch him, help him up…

Something like pain lanced through Noctis’ chest. He closed his eyes.

“Talk to me, Noct.” Ignis’ voice was barely audible over the train’s rumble. “You may sleep more easily if you acquit yourself of your troubles.”

Noctis didn’t want to talk, or ‘acquit himself of his troubles’, or any other ridiculous yet charming way Ignis could put it. What he wanted was for it all to just… stop.

The train chugged onwards.

For a long moment, Noctis said nothing. He sat there with his eyes closed and wondered if this was what it was like to be blind. Unseeing and disoriented and displaced and disconnected. Stumbling forwards with his hands held out in front, hoping the floor didn’t give out and send him spinning through darkness, ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. He thought he felt a little nauseous right now, so maybe it was too late.

Abruptly, with little cognitive engagement, Noctis stood. He turned. He sat down again. His head fell onto Ignis’ shoulder, pulled there by some force greater than his own need for comfort. Or maybe his need really was that great, but it felt more like… the attraction of two puzzle pieces that fit together a little more perfectly than all the others. Like _this_ tumultuous head belonged on _this_ steady shoulder. Like fate. A fate that felt more right than whatever it was the Astrals, the Crystal, the _world_ expected of him.

“The world is fucked with me at the helm.”

“No.” Ignis’ arm slipped around Noctis’ shoulders, lips brushing the top of his head. “The world is blessed.”

Noctis felt like more of a curse than a blessing. But he didn’t argue.

“I’m scared,” he said.

“I know.” Ignis’ hand moved to his hair. “So am I.” The admission was so quiet, Noctis would have thought he imagined it if not for the warmth of Ignis’ breath on his scalp when he spoke.

How selfish could Noctis possibly get? Soliciting comfort from the man who gave and gave and gave, and received only pain and loss in return. Noctis didn’t deserve this comfort. He knew he should push away and return to his own bunk. He couldn’t bring himself to.

He reached out and took Ignis’ free hand in his own, hoping the gesture would tell Ignis that he _did_ care, that he was sorry. He knew would never find the words to say it all out loud.

“I keep wondering,” Ignis began, fingers twining with Noctis’, “exactly where our journey started to go wrong. And how it might all have been avoided.”

“It was doomed from the start.” If they’d never left Insomnia, if they’d died in the capital like they were supposed to, would the world still be in such dire straits? Noctis found himself doubting it. Not for any logical reason. Just his own masturbatory self-pity. Selfishness.

“Perhaps,” Ignis agreed. “But when I think about what awaits us…” he trailed off. The long silence that followed told Noctis he wasn’t planning to continue.

“We don’t _know_ what awaits us,” Noctis said.

“Right,” Ignis whispered.

“That’s why it’s so scary. When it comes to the future, we’re all blind.” He felt his cheeks heat up. “I mean—”

Ignis chuckled. “It’s fine, Noct,” he said. “I don’t regret my injury. It was for a worthy cause.”

“Me.” Noctis was hardly worthy of anything, but he didn’t have the heart to say so.

“None other.”

The heat had never quite left Noctis’ face. He didn’t notice the tears flowing across the bridge of his nose, down his cheekbone, into Ignis’ collar, until the hand in his untangled itself, and came up to gently—if a bit clumsily—touch his cheek. The feather-light caress of a newly blind man.

“You should rest,” Ignis said, shifting as if preparing to stand.

Noctis was about to protest (selfishselfishselfish), but Ignis simply manoeuvred them both, carefully, feeling his way around, until they were lying down on the narrow bunk. Pressed together out of necessity as much as comfort.

Ignis kept his arm curled around Noctis’ head; a makeshift pillow, hand combing through his hair. Ignis’ other hand landed at the lower limits of Noctis’ ribcage, curled towards his back. A touch as respectful as it was oddly intimate. Noctis’ nose was a scant centimetre from the hollow of Ignis’ throat. Ignis’ lips brushed Noctis’ forehead.

He could hear his own heartbeat in his head, as if sent into overdrive by the closeness. _Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud_. Like a mantra: _Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go._

His left arm was trapped beneath him, but he lifted his right hand to lie flat on Ignis’ chest. His heart responded in kind: _I’m here. I’m here. I’m here_.

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually the first prompt fill I wrote for Ignoct week, like a month ago or something, and it's probably still one of my favourites. Sort of split between day 1, this one, and tomorrow's. I really like that timed quest fill I actually managed to do, too. 
> 
> Yeah I can't really pick favourites from my own works. Actually, I'm terrible at picking favourite anythings. :T
> 
> [tumblr](https://voxanonymi.tumblr.com/).


End file.
